Wednesday, October 26, 2011

After much prodding from various folks (ahem.... Bekke....) I'm going to make an effort to pick the blog back up. Right now I'm working 4- yep 4!- jobs and life is rather busy. So, at least for now, I'm going to just post snippets and a few photos. Nothing too in depth because I just don't have time for it. And apologies for those of you with whom I'm Facebook friends, there will likely be lots of overlap.

One of our conversations on the way to ballet today:

Isa: Mama, do you know what "stink" means?
Me: Yes, "stink" means it smells bad.
Isa: No, Mama! "Stink!"
(we then go back-and-forth several times, during in which Isa gets increasingly mad that I'm wrong and then, finally-)
Isa: You know, Mama, "stink", like the dinosaurs are "stink"!
Ahhhhhhh........

Monday, May 2, 2011

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

So, before I lose the 2 readers who still wonder what is going on with Isa B, here is a recap of the last 2 months:

Isa got sick.
Isa gave up her paci. (see previous post)
I got sick.
Hellacious first week without the paci.
We spent 3 days in the car with my parents driving to Arizona. IT SUCKED.
We got to Arizona. Things got better. We saw good friends and several Mariners' spring training games.
We spent 3 days in the car driving home. It was much, much better than the trip down.
We tried to adjust to being home.
I worked a lot.
Isa decided to give up naps for good.
I got sick.
Isa got sick.
I got sick, yet again, this time with some sort of flu.

And there you have it. More to come when I can actually stay vertical for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Tuesday morning Isa started coughing. According to my friend Christina (who watches her on Tuesdays while I work), she was tired and whiney all day to go with the coughing. Wednesday morning she continued coughing but was generally herself until the afternoon when I happened to feel her forehead and realized she was really warm. Her underarm temp was 101.5. Yikes! She slept fairly well that night and I was hopeful that she was going to be better in the morning. However, Thursday morning she had a coughing fit so intense that she vomited.

I probably shouldn't complain too much because it's only the 3rd or 4th time she's had a fever and the very first time she's ever thrown up. Even as a little baby, she rarely spit up when I burped her. She's unbelievably healthy and that leaves me completely unprepared for helping a sick little one. It's even tougher because she's still too little for any cold medicine. There's really nothing I can do but snuggle her. Luckily "Mama-medicine" is fairly potent stuff!

Today she was doing quite a bit better. Still coughing but no fever at any point. When it was time for her nap, we looked all over the house for "baba" (her pacifier) to no avail. She had hidden it somewhere and neither of us could find it. I tried getting her to sleep without it but she hemmed and hawed for over an hour. No major tantrum, she just wouldn't settle. I searched thoroughly while she was in her room and eventually found baba hidden in a pile of My Little Ponies. Instead of giving it back, though, I decided it was an ideal situation- today would be the day we broke the Baba Habit! Cold turkey, just like when I forgot her bottles on a vacation. I tucked her in for the night about 1/2 an hour ago without a fuss and haven't heard a peep since. After all of my worry about how difficult it would be to break the paci habit, it was shockingly simple. (Fingers crossed that she doesn't have a delayed reaction later this week!)

And finally braids... I found a new blog via Facebook today all about styling curly hair. The little one on the blog appears to have hair identical to Isa and after poking around a bit, I found some reasonably simple but adorable styles to try. I decided to start with this one, minus the knots. I gave Isa an early bath, then we sat down to watch Anastasia and make some braids! I think I did a reasonably good job, especially given how little experience I have with braiding. The parts aren't the straightest and the braids could be both tighter and smoother, but not bad for a first try. I definitely need to figure out a better seating arrangement for our braiding sessions, though, since trying to get at the right angle to do each braid was tricky.

﻿And, on a final note, I haven't ditched Weigh-In Wednesday. The battery in my scale died the week after my first posting and my brain couldn't seem to remember to put a new battery on the shopping list. I finally did last week and this Wednesday, my weight was 185.5. Not much weight loss for 3 weeks but if you've visited my other blog you'll see why it's going slowly. I need to do a better job of homemade goodness without quite so many carbs and fat. Sure has been tasty, though!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

I've been meaning to do this post for a couple weeks now. 2 weeks ago I chickened out and last week I was sick. This week I have no excuse. (Say it with me: proactive... proactive... proactive... proactive)

I really need to lose some weight. Well, not just "some" weight- at least 40 pounds. I am, admittedly, a fan of reality TV and a new season of The Biggest Loser just started. What's the first thing they do on the show and then the big moment they work towards each week? Everyone stands on the scale and shows the world their weight. In the name of being proactive, I've decided that once a week I'll weigh in and post my weight on the blog. My own little version of The Biggest Loser. Hopefully it will give me extra accountability and motivation to stay the course.

It's a bit scary to put myself out there like this, to admit how heavy I've become. But then I realized that if you know me in person you might not know the number on the scale but you already know how big I am. If you don't know me in real life then really, why should I care that you know my weight?

Oh, and sorry but you're not getting a photo in a sports bra and spandex shorts ala The Biggest Loser to go with the number. I'm not that brave!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

It turns out I have many fewer pictures from Christmas than I thought I had. Or at least fewer pictures that I ought to post online- early morning, no makeup, in her jammies shots of my sister didn't make the cut no matter how adorable Isa was in in the photo. Now that's sisterly love!

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Bacon jam- homemade presents for friends

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Decorating sugar cookies with Grandma- I think more sprinkles went in her mouth than on the cookies

Our traditional Ethiopian Christmas Eve feast

Perhaps the greatest present Santa brought- her own "makeup" case

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The new ruffled-tush jammies that Grandma made Isa. She made me jammies from the same fabric
but I discovered on Christmas Eve that I'd forgotten to pack them.

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Oh, the Pillow Pet madness!!!!

It was all too much for Soona-puppy...
Of course, this is how we all looked by mid-afternoon.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

(I promise there will be a belated Christmas post with glorious pictures, but I really felt I needed to get this post out first)

2010 was a rough year because whenever I got to a point where things were falling into place, life would implode a bit. I spent the year feeling as though I couldn't ever get ahead. No, scratch that. I spent the year feeling as though I couldn't even stay afloat.

Which sucks. A lot. And has turned me into Cranky Mom. Cranky Mom misses a lot of the joy in raising a talkative, amusing, full-of-love 3 year old. Cranky Mom experiences only the stress, remembers only the tantrums, sees only the piles of undone laundry/toys/dishes. Cranky Mom yells too often. Cranky Mom relies too often on TV and can go for days without leaving the house, even to just play outside. Cranky Mom is stressed out, exhausted, and on auto pilot. Cranky Mom simply reacts to life rather than living it. I really hate Cranky Mom.

Time to oust Cranky Mom!

I've never had much luck with New Year's resolutions and last year's To-Do List was only moderately successful. However I really like the idea of having some sort of motivating principle or goal for the year and a friend suggested the One Word Resolution. Totally brilliant but much harder for an overly wordy person, like myself, to do. After much deliberation....

My word for 2011: PROACTIVE

Sounds a bit strange, but let me elaborate. I am surprisingly good at recognizing my own failings and the things in my life that I most need to work on. However, I never seem to get around to actually doing the work to fix those problems. All those things that make me exhausted and cranky, well, most of them are within my power to change. I just haven't changed them.

Take the 40lbs I wanted to lose for my sister's wedding. I did manage to lose about 15lbs but post-wedding, have gained it all back. I am not a newbie to weight gain and loss. I know exactly how I gained the weight and I know exactly what I need to do to lose it. But have I stopped my excessive nighttime eating? Have I utilized opportunities to add exercise into my routine? Nope.

I've complained about the shambles of my finances to you all before. But have I done anything concrete to try and help myself- made an actual budget, found extra work, made an appointment with the bank to talk about mortgage help? Nope.

So there you have it. The word that I want to strive for in 2011is proactive. As Nike would say, Just Do It. I'm going to stop sitting back and waiting for life to fix itself. In the (spoken all too often) words of my darling Isa, "I do it myself!"

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I decided I needed a challenge this year to really keep myself present and involved in my life. Something tangible that I could use to monitor my progress in taking back control of life. A way to be accountable to the goal of being proactive. Enter the experiment: http://www.myhomemadeyear.blogspot.com/ Follow along as I attempt to revamp my life by going homemade. Intriguing, no?

Don't worry, for the three of you that still read this blog, I'll still be blogging here about Isa B and the pitfalls of Mama-hood. And, hopefully, a bit more consistently.

About Me

I'm a single mama to a busy preschooler. Life got a little too harried and we started relying heavily on prepackaged and convience foods. We were surviving and not really living. I decided we needed a radical change to get back on track. Follow along as I stumble through a year of going homemade.